


Adventures In Social Media

by bendingwind



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-20
Updated: 2013-03-20
Packaged: 2017-12-05 21:01:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/727888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bendingwind/pseuds/bendingwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts with a youtube video.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adventures In Social Media

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Adventures In Social Media](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1702640) by [wallisCACA](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wallisCACA/pseuds/wallisCACA)



> Er. Oops?
> 
> concertigrossi on tumblr requested:  
>  _C/C: Phil does something heroic while living his daily life - takes down a bank robber on a regular trip to the bank (he just wanted to get to his safety deposit box, dammit), saves someone who falls onto the subway tracks, dives into the harbor to get someone who can't swim etc. This gets picked up by some famous talking-head who bleats on about average citizens taking responsibility for their own defense. Phil is horribly embarrassed, Clint thinks it's awesome._

It starts with a youtube video.

Apparently some kid with a cell phone saw That-Guy-Hawkeye’s-Rumored-To-Be-Dating and started filming him on his phone, just as a mugger dragged a lady back into an alleyway, and he caught the whole thing. It’s not great quality, but it’s pretty obviously Phil kicking the mugger’s ass with a bit of loose roof tile and a manila folder. It pings SHIELD’s internet radar and gets emailed around a little, but the kid’s got less than fifty subscribers and thankfully it never hits the mainstream.

Next it’s a facebook page with some old footage of him stopping a holdup at a gas station with a sack of flour. SHIELD takes care of the page, which only has nine likes anyway, and Phil comes home to find a sack of flour on his pillow with a neat purple ribbon tied around it.

The flour maybe ends up in Clint’s favorite pair of pants. Accidentally.

It’s a little harder to suppress the tiny twitter storm that comes in the wake of Phil stopping a bank robbery on Main. He’s just finished wrangling the Avengers into an attempted undercover mission--and whoever had thought disguising _Thor_ was a good idea was going to be _fired_ when he gets back to his office--and he really just wants to retrieve his wedding ring from its nice, secure safety deposit box and go home to his husband and the cat that definitely is not theirs, thank you very much.

The point is, he’s pretty grouchy by the time a masked woman pulls out a gun and starts shouting about money. He is literally _two feet_ away from the door and this being someone else’s problem.

She leaves on a stretcher with two broken legs, and her husband is in even worse shape. Phil actually feels much better.

Fortunately, no one got any footage and while the mysterious hero is widely lauded, Phil doesn’t get stuck with any of that.

Then there’s the second youtube video. Some lady in a restaurant apparently tries to take discreet video of Hawkeye on a Big Gay Date and instead gets some pretty intense footage of Phil single-handedly stopping a loud and showy assassination attempt on a senator’s wife. They barely get out on the street and past the line of cops before the questions start, SHIELD makes some calls, and it seems like everything might just blow over--

\--and then the next morning they wake up to Phil’s face plastered all over the news and more than a million hits on the lady’s youtube video plus half a million more on the one linked in the comments, where someone has compiled all of the footage of Phil. He doesn’t even make it to work without being honked at by two taxi drivers who give him big thumbs up or a pimple-ridden teenager asking for his autograph in front of SHIELD’s fake-office-slash-launch-site.

Having once been a pimple-ridden fanboy himself, Phil can’t really say _no_ , but it is the single most mortifying moment of his life except maybe for that time he made Captain America think he was stalking him.

He makes it to the Helicarrier just in time to face Nick’s furious stare. Then the corner of the director’s mouth quirks up, and something close to a chuckle escapes.

“Tired of being a sidekick, Agent Coulson?” he asks, with a downright _evil_ little smile. This is why he’s Phil’s best friend: no one else could possibly hate him this much.

Nick motions for him to follow, so Phil does, all the way to Nick’s second most secret office aboard the Helicarrier. Nick flips a switch and turns the screen of the monitor around for Phil to see, then sits back, crosses his arms across his chest, and smiles a frankly alarming smile.

On the screen, a CNN reporter solemnly applauds this display of ‘civilians defending themselves’ and discusses the ways in which ordinary people can make a difference in their own city, etcetera, etcetera. Phil watches until he realizes his mouth is hanging just slightly open, and then he snaps his jaw shut and refocuses on Nick.

“Sir?” he asks, because _really_.

Nick shrugs, still grinning. “Too big to shut it down now, Phil. Guess you’ll have to go public as the Avengers’ handler after all.”

“I thought the point was that I was a regular civilian saving the day, sir?” Phil asks cooly, raising an eyebrow to hide just how pathetic this last-ditch attempt to wiggle out of accidental fame really is.

Nick’s grin widens, and he waves a hand dismissively.

“Now, Cheese, we can’t have ordinary civilians pulling that shit, casualties would go through the roof. ‘Fraid you’re not gonna get out of manning up this time.”

Phil doesn’t even try to hide his disgust as he stands up to leave. _He_ is not supposed to be one of the heroes.

Clint meets him out in the hallway, slouched casually against the wall, and grinning fit to burst.

“Welcome to the life of a superhero, sir,” he says, pulling away from the wall to fall into step beside Phil.

Phil glares at him and slips a leg over to trip him. Clint, unfortunately, is well-prepared for that particular trick at this point in their relationship, and easily slides around the maneuver. 

“I did not sign up for this,” Phil grits out. Clint bumps his shoulder against Phil’s companionably.

“It’ll make time go faster while I sign autographs if you’re doing it too,” Clint points out.

Phil scowls at him. Clint grins wider a slings an arm over Phil’s shoulder, pulling him in closer.

“Don’t tell me you never wanted to be a superhero, I’ve seen your _entire_ Captain America collection,” Clint teases, but quietly, so that no one passing them in the halls will overhear, “and that includes _both_ varieties of cosplay.”

Phil does not turn crimson with embarrassment in the middle of a public hallway, but only because Clint has given him a _lot_ of practice over the years.

Clint leans in to nuzzle Phil’s jaw, and this time Phil can’t quite stop at least a little of his blood from rushing to his face.

“Besides, it’s my turn to have the famous husband,” Clint purrs, and Phil gives up entirely, because if Clint wants him to be a media sensation, there’s no way it won’t happen. Clint has access to _tumblr_ and about a billion followers.

It ends with Phil’s face on far more newsreels than he ever, _ever_ wanted, and a lot of being pulled over to Clint’s laptop to see text posts about people cooing over how cute he and Clint are together.

Could’ve been worse.


End file.
